BJP demands prime minister’s assurance on Satyam

New Delhi, Jan 9 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who holds the finance portfolio, should come out with a statement to restore investor confidence after the disclosure of massive financial fraud at Satyam Computers.”All the regulatory agencies and ministries had failed to check the fraud and the prime minister must make a statement to restore investor confidence,” senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi told reporters.

He said the centre should also set up a central regulatory agency to prevent such frauds in the futur, and demanded an investigation into the role of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA), the income tax department, the stock exchanges and the registrar of companies in the scandal.

“It appears that all the agencies - whether regulatory, monitoring or assessing - have failed to discharge their responsibility, leading lakhs of small investors to lose their hard-earned money,” Joshi said.

“Besides small investors, a public firm like Life Insurance Corporation of India has lost crores invested in Satyam and a number of banks also have an outstanding debt of over Rs.2.5 billion,” he added.